Master thesis

33 posts

David Esteban, Ivo Jaanisoo (2016) The global climate challenges and growing discrepancy between the availability and demand for natural resources have driven many industries to alter their practices. The construction industry is highly responsible for climate impact and natural resource usage. The pressure for the industry to change is apparent […]

Aako Raoofi, 2016 The concept of sustainable development has failed to make radical changes in today’s behavior. This concept has not been incorporated into the engineering practices. Change over time is certain what those changes would be is uncertain. Lock-ins in existing socio-technical system are strong barriers against radical changes. […]

Applying sustainable development in the urban transportation system demands a transformative and integrative intervention in many different areas. In this thesis two successive processes, Phase I and Phase II, were conducted in order to investigate opportunities for sustainable development in the urban transport system. During Phase I the research question of this thesis was […]

The current conventional energy production and forecast for fulfilling the demand of future energy need with conventional energy production pose a serious threat to the humanity. With abundant energy source and huge technology advancement, solar energy is one of many magic pills that could drive the world towards sustainable energy use. This thesis […]

This thesis includes two phases. The Phase I is about the Challenge Lab process, which is applied to identify a research topic as a leverage point for moving towards sustainable urban development. Since overcoming sustainability challenges needs interorganizational collaboration and user involvement, the Phase II focuses on these issues. In […]

Increasing concerns are being raised about the symptoms of the present unsustainable trends linked to the systems we have built up to fulfill our needs. This calls for a transition in systems related to energy supply, mobility, agriculture, and consumption. In order to successfully contribute to this transition challenge criteria […]

Sustainable urban development was defined as the challenge to be addressed by the students of the 2015 version of the Challenge Lab and as the framework under which research questions would be derived. The Challenge Lab is a neutral arena where students become change agents and address complex problems from a systems’ perspective. […]

Around 90% of the total costs of commercial buildings´ operations are attributed to the staff in terms of salaries and benefits. Energy-related behaviors of building occupants are directly related to high fluctuations of energy consumption in buildings. Evidently, Green buildings and upcoming sustainable building technologies will need to justify their […]

The world could be entering an era of carbon neutral, decentralised electricity production; fuelled by plummeting prices of solar photovoltaic systems, and the empowerment of property owners and small-scale investors. The entry of individual homeowners poses however challenges for the further diffusion of photovoltaics, as they are likely to bring new mechanisms onto the […]

District development in Sweden both shapes and is shaped by multiple societal, environmental and economic factors. The role and responsibility of district development projects is therefore important and requires great attention from both The Client and The Suppliers. Multiple researchers point at the need of transitions towards sustainability within the construction industry, as the […]

In this project a bioretention planter (BP) that retain stormwater and reduce nickel (Ni), copper (Cu), zinc (Zn) and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) is designed for use in Gothenburg. Initially the research question was defined following the Challenge Lab process. As the maximum capacity is reached at the wastewater treatment […]

The thesis work is divided to two phases. Phase I focus on Challenge Lab process based on the methodology of backcasting, from an outside in and an inside out approach. The outside in approach is related to knowledge input while the inside out approach is to research oneself. Challenge Lab students use design […]

Today’s society faces large environmental and societal challenges such as a rapid growing population and increasing CO2 concentrations. Challenge Lab at Chalmers is a multicultural initiate that aims to contribute to the transformation towards a sustainable society and this year, 2014, the focus has been on sustainable transportation and mobility. […]

This thesis consists of two parts. Part I describes the Challenge Lab method, which is a method developed for students to find a thesis research question to support transition into a sustainable society. The Challenge Lab method was carried out by 12 students during Spring 2014 and contains methodologies, tools, perspectives, theories and frameworks […]

Chalmers introduced a new challenge-driven lab, called Challenge Lab (C-Lab), in year 2014. We (two master students) and ten other students are the test pilots for this new type of education at Chalmers. The rst part of this thesis is about the entire C-Lab process, where the C-Lab team met with dierent stakeholders […]